"Desperate"

It's another 2 a.m. in this forgotten sinkhole. Like always, insomnia got the best of Johnny to commit suicide. If I hadn't said "Blood isn't the answer, Johnny. Don't orchestrate your own doom," he would have pulled the trigger and dropped dead on the floor. Instead, he repeated my words, "Blood. Doom. Cherry Doom. Cherry Freezy!" He ran out of the house and went to that familiar 24/7 again. After thirty minutes, I heard his car returned and he got something heavy from the trunk. It was a screaming person with nerd ensemble and extreme acne. Why must Johnny invite the worst of people into the house?

"You said you will turn it on at 2 a.m.," Johnny shouted at the guest while dragging him down to the underground labyrinth. Johnny pinned him on to the wall with clamps, and attached two heavy hooks on each side of the nerd's wide retainers. Johnny turned the wheel, and the hooks stretched out the victim's mouth. He replied lisping, "Look, I'm only new in that store. No one told me anything about the Brainfreezy machine." Johnny only shouted more expletives, "I hate people act and look smart when they're actually ignorant of the essential things in life, especially Brainfreezy!"

"Let's take this logica – argh!" Johnny already turned the wheel more, and the hooks totally pulled the retainer harder like in a tag of war. The victim shrieked in pain as all of his teeth were being pulled out. But they were so intact that in made his face split in half. His know-it-all brain fell on the floor, and Johnny squashed it into paste, "If you like to study so much, let this be a lesson." Then, his hysteric chuckles were interrupted by the cry of his human door bell. He answered the door, and before him was a girl in black. She had no make-up, but she was still a pretty thing. Dumbfounded, Johnny glanced at her.

"I think this belongs to you," she showed him a pocket knife, "You must have dropped it in while trying to get a hold of that squirming dork back in the 24/7. I wonder why you didn't use this on him." Johnny took his pocket knife from the girl's hand with broken nails, and shyly thanked her. "So, are you going to invite me in?" she asked looking interested about the room behind Johnny.

"So, you followed me all the way just to give back this pocket knife?" Johnny asked as he led her through the foyer.

"It's a cool knife. I would've kept it, but the reason why I came here is, to be frank, I want to ask you out for the Annual Victorian Ball. By the looks of you, you might heard of it. All the goths would be there." Then, the girl began to feed her eyes with the fascinating grotesque interiors and paintings in Johnny's house. She felt that this stranger was becoming too good for her. "By the way, my name is Anne. What's yours?"

"Johnny. Call me Nny for short. Desperation is such a cruel human passion. Grabbing something blindly, surrendering to the last resort, the worst resort. It leads to one's mortification and then, the reality would soon come back to the consciousness, the reality that one had made the biggest mistake and would never be erased, unless by going back in time and not giving in to that desperation."

"If I'm really that desperate, how come I didn't ask that cashier out instead?"

"Yes. But I appeared, didn't I? Compared to him, for you, I was a better loser. I know all the guys were taken, and you were rejected along the way. In your deep need to have a date, you'll have anyone, anything, be it a nerd or a poser. I know, Anne. In your mind I'm a poser! But I'm good at being one, huh?" Johnny walked faster into the mirror room, and shut the door behind him, leaving the girl alone in the T.V. room. Johnny was gasping for air, as if he was out of breath. He looked at his self in one mirror, and broke it with his fist. "Curse that bitch!" he smirked.

"Why, Nny, I never see you smile like this," I said but he didn't look at me. His eyes were closed, then I continued, "There's a pretty girl there asking you out. She likes you, y'know. And I know, you like it that she invited you."

"Pretty girls are bitches. They all are!"

"But she's not wearing make-up, is she, Nny? Nor is she having a smoke. She doesn't look like those girls who worry about their look. She looks terrible at this point, but she's still pretty, right? Take this as an opportunity for you to be happy again."

"But that would dub me as desperate, too, Nailbunny, desperate to be happy. Besides, she's inviting me to a party full of moaning assholes painted black with tar."

"That sounds like a fun party," the Doughboys appeared, "More blood for the wall." For the first time, the Doughboys agreed with me. At that time, it was to persuade Johnny to accept this girl's invitation. He peeked out the door and saw Anne sitting on the couch. She was talking to the cat Johnny took home one day and gouged its eyes with a spoon. That cat's name was Phoebe. Like me, she became one of the voices whispering through the wall cracks. But for now, she's still weak to get hold of Johnny. I don't trust her for she hangs out with the Doughboys.

"Perfect," Anne said as she patted the cat, "I should be perfect." Her eyes gazed at the bloody wall as if it was miles away. Johnny approached her, and sat on one end of the couch. They stared at each other for awhile, until Johnny asked, "Why do you really need a date?"

"People care too much, Nny, and it sickens me. They get bothered if there's a change in me, like going dateless. Then, they laugh at me for having such an unforgettable flaw. Why do they all care? Why can't they leave me alone and not care if I change?"

"Then, why do you care about what they think?"

"Face it. I'm also a pitiful human. Sometimes, I wish I was numb, someone who doesn't care about anything, not even needs."

Johnny nodded and threw out his pocket knife onto the couch. Anne grabbed it as Johnny smiled at her. She giggled.